An account of the toll that depression has taken on European and North American health since the 18th century.

Abstract: Dancing in the Streets explores a human impulse that has been so effectively suppressed that we lack even a term for it: the desire for collective joy, historically expressed in revels of feasting, costuming, and dancing. Drawing on a wealth of history and anthropology, Ehrenreich uncovers the origins of communal celebration in human biology and culture. From the earliest orgiastic near Eastern rites to the medieval practice of Christianity as a "danced religion" and the transgressive freedoms of carnival, she demonstrates that mass festivities have long been central to the Western tradition. In recent centuries, this tradition has been repressed, cruelly and often bloodily. But as Ehrenreich argues, the celebratory impluse is too deeply ingrained in human nature ever to be completely extinguished.

-

Table of Contents

Introduction: Invitation to the Dance1. The Archaic Roots of Ecstasy2. Civilization and Backlash3. Jesus and Dionysus4. From the Churches to the Streets: The Creation of Carnival5. Killing Carnival: Reformation and Repression6. A Note on Puritanism and Military Reform7. An Epidemic of Melancholy8. Guns Against Drums: Imperialism Encounters Ecstasy9. Fascist Spectacles10. The Rock Rebellion11. Carnivalizing SportsConclusion: The Possibility of RevivalNotesBibliographyAcknowledgmentsIndex